Just a few of the places where rock 'n' roll is made -- live, loud, cramped, sweaty -- and served with cold beer by tattooed ladies.

"These clubs are the catalyst for commercial revitalization, neighborhood revitalization ," says Cleveland City Councilman Jay Westbrook. "We know the Beachland brought the Collinwood-Waterloo district back to life. We celebrate that Brothers makes the Cleveland-Lakewood edge hum."

These venues also are targets of Cleveland officials on a misguided mission to extract revenue instead of enjoying the good vibrations.

Since discovering a few years back that these small juke joints weren't paying the city's 8 percent entertainment admission tax, the Jackson administration has seemed bent on putting them out of business through draconian enforcement of the existing tax while dragging its feet on efforts to legislate a fairer tax level for smaller venues and resolve their issues over back taxes.

For several years now, Finance Director Sharon Dumas has pursued small venues such as the Beachland and Peabody's over their failure to collect and remit the admission tax.

Although the city has substantially changed its stance in the past year and tried to negotiate a deal over back taxes, it hasn't come to terms with the clubs -- and city officials have not shown much flexibility regarding efforts by City Council to legislate lower taxes for smaller neighborhood joints.

The city didn't try to collect admission taxes from the smaller clubs until a 2009 efficiency study noted the oversight. Then, instead of working with the clubs to resolve the issue in a mutually beneficial way, Dumas demanded they pay up.

Cindy Barber, co-owner of the Beachland, a Collinwood beacon, and Chris Zitterbart, owner of Peabody's by Cleveland State University, suddenly found themselves staring down the gun barrel of almost $400,000 just in back taxes, interest and penalties.

It was an impossible amount of money. These clubs operate on guitar-string budgets. The city was tone-deaf to that reality. Its stance, as articulated by Mayor Frank Jackson's press secretary, was unequivocal: "Pay your %&#$ taxes!"

"The reality is that the people making decisions within the administration don't understand the economics of the music business," Zitterbart said. "It's a break-even business."

And that's on a good night. The real benefit of such clubs -- aside from their role as incubators of what Frank Sinatra described as "the most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear" -- is their ability to draw people into places they would never go.

Last fall, the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture released a study showing that the local music industry pumps tens of millions of dollars into the economy each year.

On the heels of that revelation, Westbrook and fellow Councilmen Joe Cimperman, Mike Polensek and Matt Zone introduced legislation that would have exempted venues with a capacity of 700 or less from the city's admission tax.

It was a progressive solution that recognized the crucial role independent club owners play in giving the city its rock 'n' roll cachet. The bill went nowhere. The Law Department responded with a punitive proposal that would have treated the clubs as if they were fronts for money laundering. And there the conversation stopped.

Meanwhile, the city forked over $500,000 to help stage the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in April.

"We ought to be consistent," Westbrook said. "If the music's good enough to subsidize that, then it should be good enough to subsidize the Happy Dog."

The significance of such live music joints is not lost on Terry Stewart, president and CEO of the Rock Hall. He describes them as "incredibly important to our legacy as a rock 'n' roll capital" and "a worthy investment" that not only creates jobs and attracts visitors but supports "the perception of Cleveland as being a vibrant center for entertainment and culture."

Today, the issue will be back on City Council's agenda, when Council President Martin Sweeney asks: What can we do about the admission tax on small clubs? His recommendation: Occupancy rates of 150 people or fewer, no tax; 151 to 500, 4 percent; 501 and up, 8 percent. That rate is calculated according to each stage a venue may have, rather than by the collective occupancy of its building.

It's a start -- a poor start that will likely drive Peabody's out of town, since its main stage holds 700 people, meaning the proposed legislation doesn't help at all. Zitterbart says he already is being recruited by other cities that want his business.

My recommendation: Exempt clubs with occupancy rates of 1,200 or less. And walk away from the back taxes. That money probably was never collected. It doesn't exist.

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